Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 11 - The Murder Mystery of Mary London - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Sacramento, California, January 15, 1981, the body of a dead teen found dumped on the side of the road.
She's been brutally stabbed a number of times. There was all signs that indicated that it was
a sexually motivated murder. Why would someone do that to her? NANCY GRACE: Police cordoned off the scene.
They don't know it yet, but this homicide will become one of the most puzzling cases in California.
PAT HIGGINS: Somebody that knew her saw her get off the city bus. And that was the last sighting of her.
It really touched a lot of people's heart, because she was so young. NANCY GRACE: Investigators are relentless
in their search for justice. The case stays active over 40 years. We had the DNA.
And that was it. And the case really went cold again. NANCY GRACE: This is the story of Mary London whose
tragic murder remains unsolved for Sacramento Police until groundbreaking DNA technology leads
them straight to the killer. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]
NANCY GRACE: Sacramento, California-- in 1981, it's a quiet and seemingly safe part of the world.
Even though Sacramento is the capital of California, it still feels like a rural community.
It's a very rural area. You'd think people live here-- they cut their lawns on Saturday.
They have barbecues. And everybody is feeling very safe and content. PAT HIGGINS: I grew up in the city.
Lived here my whole life. I liked it. And I thought it was a great place to live.
It was a safe place to raise your kids. At least, we all thought it was. NANCY GRACE: Mary London is a vulnerable 17-year-old girl
from a troubled family. She attends a local high school. PAT HIGGINS: She just seemed like a sweet high school girl.
Didn't seem to have any enemies or anything like that. Seemed like she had had a rough upbringing.
ESTHER SCHNEIDER: She was a very sweet person. She liked everybody. We didn't get to know each other that well.
I was the oldest one. Last time I saw her, she was six years old when we lost our mom.
We both gave hugs to each other. And I told Mary that everything's going to be OK.
WENDY OLIVOS: My mom just says she remembers Mary as a little girl. Loved everybody.
And that, you know, she just-- my mom wanted to protect her. The father was very abusive in the home.
And he was abusive to my mom as well. She was separated from my mom. ESTHER SCHNEIDER: Mary was in the foster care, I guess,
because of her dad. My mom being so young, you know, she couldn't take it no more.
And she left. She ran away. And she kept running away. I was in the foster care, because Mary's dad
and I never did get along. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Mary London's routine is always
the same every single day. That is, until January 14. On that day, Mary's routine is broken.
Her foster parents become worried. Investigators will soon discover that afternoon is the start
of a murder investigation. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: Mary London was like clockwork. She did the same thing every day during the week.
3:30, she got on the bus. She went home. But this day was different. PAT HIGGINS: They made a missing persons report.
They did a pretty thorough investigation. They went out and tried to talk to everybody.
They talked to everybody that knew her, all the family and friends. And they didn't have the technology
that we have nowadays. So it was really just talking to people and trying to get leads that way.
She was at school that day. And she had gone to a friend's house. And then she told the friend she was going to come
downtown to see somebody. And the friend saw her get on the city bus. And then somebody that knew her saw her get off the city bus
downtown at 8th and K Street. And that was the last sighting of her. Teen girl Mary London is never seen alive again.
Her body found the morning of January 15, gruesomely stabbed. The utility worker who finds her immediately alerts police.
Right away, police pick up clues left behind at the crime scene. PAT HIGGINS: She was found naked except for one sock.
And it had the Sac High Dragon on it. And that's how they were able to go back to the school
and figure out her identity fairly quick. She had a shoe that was further up the road.
And she was also tied too. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: She had a drapery cord wrapped around her, which I thought was very odd.
To me, it kind of reeked of someone that was forced out into this area. It was just a very, very graphic scene.
NANCY GRACE: The discovery that Mary London's the victim of such a vicious attack spreads fear
throughout the small community. Nobody wants to live in an area where a brutal murder like this takes place.
But it happens. It has the reverberations of the community saying, is there a serial killer out here?
And is it going to happen again? If it was me, I'd be picking my kids up from school every day
until this person was caught. NANCY GRACE: There is a killer on the loose in Sacramento--
the community in a panic. As we see next on "Bloodline Detectives," police move quickly and launch a full-scale investigation.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: January 1981, Sacramento police launched their investigation into the savage murder
of teen girl Mary London. She never got the opportunity to become a mom, get married, you know, live her life.
NANCY GRACE: Police search for whatever forensic evidence they could possibly find.
I knew that area fairly well, and it was always just farmland. That was pretty desolate out there.
There's no houses. There's no businesses. There's nobody around. So as a detective, where do you start?
Well, that actually says something about the crime. It says that Mary's killer took her to this remote area,
either because he knew the area or because it was a far enough away dump site so that nobody would hear her scream,
so that nobody would see him dump her. And so when detectives arrive at the scene,
one of the first things they'll do is tape it off, make sure nobody touches the scene.
Even this being 1981, they are still collecting evidence. So they're looking for fingerprints.
They're looking for hairs, trace evidence. They're looking for footprints, tire tracks,
anything that can point them in the direction of Mary's killer. And there is definitely evidence there.
There's evidence at every crime scene. You just have to find it. NANCY GRACE: Cops continue to search the crime scene
while the body of teen girl Mary London is taken away for autopsy. She'd been stabbed three times-- and very
clear stab wounds to the heart. There was some indication that she may have potentially been strangled-- like,
what they would call a soft. When somebody gets strangled, you often see what's called petechiae, which
is you pop some blood vessels. There was some slight evidence of that. But clearly, it was the stab wounds to the heart
that had killed her. The most critical piece of evidence was, what we would call, the sexual assault
kit collected from her body. When she was examined by a pathologist back in 1981,
they took swabs from her body. And they reported, at the time, that they did not find any sperm.
And that was kind of-- I would say that was a roadblock back in the day. Because it led investigators to think
there wasn't going to be any biological evidence. NANCY GRACE: The toughest moment for any investigator
is not what they do to solve the crime. It's the human factor-- the difficult and horrible moment
when they must tell a victim's family what has happened-- in this case, to their daughter.
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: I've interviewed scores of detectives whose job it was to break the news to a parent
that they've lost a child to murder. And, you know, this is the part of the job that
keeps detectives up at night, keeps them staring at the ceiling, keeps their stomach in knots.
You know, I have to go to a house, knock on the door, and tell these people that their 17-year-old child is dead.
ESTHER SCHNEIDER: I didn't know nothing about what happened to her. And my foster mom called me up.
And she said, Esther? She said, are you sitting down? And I said, no. Well, I think you better sit down.
And she said, Mary's dead. And I said, no. I said, that can't be. And she said, yeah.
She's dead. I was watching the news, and it was. They were talking about her on the news.
I just couldn't believe my eyes. It was shocking to me. NANCY GRACE: The funeral service held
for Mary is highly emotional. Everyone is there. WENDY OLIVOS: I remember there was so many people there.
But I think that it really touched a lot of people's heart, because she was so young.
I remember where I was sitting with my mom. Everybody was walking by, you know, to see
her, saying goodbye to her. My mom went up to say her goodbyes and give her a kiss and a hug.
And I remember it, like, to this day. I'm 47 years old, and I remember it like it was yesterday.
And I just remember her laying there just so peaceful. But through the years, it always stuck in my head.
You know, like, who-- why would someone do that to her? NANCY GRACE: Sacramento police are determined they
will find Mary London's killer. One of the key components of any homicide is, OK, what's the last 24 hours of her life?
Who was she with? Who was she not with? They did everything they could possibly do to try to figure
out who was she last seen with. They were trying to interview folks from the high school.
To solve cases back then was so difficult. I mean, it was basically, you had to talk to people
and hope you got a witness. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: And ultimately, they didn't think they had physical evidence at the time.
So it made it a very difficult case to pursue on who is the person that left this evidence behind.
Because they didn't know there was actually evidence. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: Once you run out of leads,
you have to wait for information to come in. OK? Or you have to wait for technology
to catch up to the case. Months turn into years. And this case goes cold. But the years pass.
And Mary London's case goes stone cold, unsolved until investigator Anne Marie Schubert
begins to use a revolutionary forensic weapon. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Sacramento, California, "Bloodline Detectives" now using forensic weapons
to solve the 1981 murder of teen girl Mary London. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: I had done DNA cases.
I'd become fairly proficient at them. I started teaching in the late '90s on cold cases and DNA.
And there was-- as far as I knew, there was no DA's office that had a cold case unit.
And I knew our county had a lot of unsolved murders, not the least of which was the East Area
Rapist/Golden State Killer. So I went to my office and asked if we could start the unit.
And I was lucky that they said yes. And I was lucky that I was able to create it.
And so what we started to do is look for all cases involving women, because we suspected if there
was a sexual assault involved, that we would have DNA evidence. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: It's definitely possible to get
DNA from any crime scene. You just have to keep searching. There's no way that a killer can ever not leave a piece
of evidence at a crime scene. Because today, we have touch DNA-- skin cells just falling off of us.
NANCY GRACE: The new cold case team has a suggestion for Sacramento Police. I very distinctly remember an investigator coming and saying,
hey, can I look at one of these cold cases? And I suggested, go-- go look at Mary London,
because it-- all signs indicated sexual assault. You cannot ask for a better case than Mary London,
a 17-year-old girl. I had a handful of cases, but this has got to be the top priority.
ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: Then he came back and said, well, there's no sperm found. And I was surprised.
But I said, OK, let's-- you know, let's move on to a different case, because we-- we didn't think there
was going to be biological evidence. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: Back in the '80s, crime scene specialists spent a tremendous amount of time
at murder scenes collecting every possible thing they can. They bag it. They put it in the evidence room.
Because they all know that technology in crime solving keeps changing. So sooner or later, they can go grab a piece of evidence
and test it. And that's exactly what we have in this case. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: About a year into the cold case unit,
we started to realize that the staining method that was used by pathologists back in the day
was not sufficient to actually identify sperm that was, in fact, there. So we reanalyzed it.
We sent it back as soon as we started to understand this better. And I talked to the pathologists in the current time
about the old staining process. Then we started to say, OK, we've got to send it back in.
And that's what we ultimately did. And that's when I ultimately discovered that there was,
in fact, sperm that could potentially lead us to the person who killed her. NANCY GRACE: The "Bloodline Detectives"
have a breakthrough, because they can identify the killer's DNA. But now they need a match.
And for that, they go to CODIS, the national DNA database. JOSEPH DIZINNO: CODIS stands for the Combined
DNA Indexing System. It started back in the '90s with many of the state laws to mandate taking DNA from defendants upon
conviction after they convict-- were convicted of a violent crime. And the reason for that is if they serve their sentence
and got out, they may re-commit those crimes. So this was a database to then look at an unknown DNA
sample from a crime scene, compare it to the CODIS database to see if this person had possibly committed
another crime, and identify who that person may be when we don't know the-- the source of the sample from the crime scene.
And it's been very, very successful. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: We resubmitted the evidence
in the early 2000s. Ultimately, developed a DNA profile of the person who left the sperm behind.
That profile was then uploaded to our convicted offender database. And there was never a match.
Investigators, however, get a tip just when they need one the most. A source tells them to look for a male friend
of Mary Sue who disappears shortly after her murder. The only name they're given is Darrell.
Next on "Bloodline Detectives," we see if that's enough to crack this case wide open.
[MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Sacramento, California, 2016, police reopened the case of teen girl Mary London,
murdered 1981. After 35 years, the case is reopened. And very soon, the cold case team has a possible lead.
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: With any murder investigation, the victim is the bullseye. And the first ring around that bullseye
is everybody that person knows. PAT HIGGINS: One of the witnesses in the case had said that Mary was coming downtown to meet somebody.
And they thought his name was Darrell. But they had very little information. They described him as male, Black.
And they thought he might be 23 years old. But they had no information. WENDY OLIVOS: She had a boyfriend.
And her foster mom confirmed she did have a boyfriend. I told my mom she was dating someone.
So that name, we thought, was her boyfriend or something. But we don't know for sure.
That was just a name that was kind of thrown out there. PAT HIGGINS: And the detectives over the years, originally
and subsequently, they did so much work on offenders with the name of Darrell. And just nothing ever came up.
NANCY GRACE: Investigators refused to give up on the murder of 17-year-old Mary London.
They have a DNA specimen. And they're trying desperately to see if a man named Darrell could be a match.
I got two phone calls naming the same Darrell. And obviously, I was thinking that was a great lead.
He fit the description. He was the right age and everything like that. Unfortunately, we had his DNA in the system.
And it was not a match. So it was a dead end. And then on New Year's Eve, I was working at my desk.
And I think it was early afternoon. And I get an email saying, Pat, can you-- can I call you?
And I'm super excited, because I thought, oh, this has got to be great news. It's a holiday afternoon.
The head of the crime lab is calling me. And she says, well, I've got news for you.
And I'm like, OK. She said, it's good news and bad news. And I'm like, oh no. And she said, well, the bad news is he is not our guy.
It was just a statistical anomaly. And it wasn't-- it's not our guy. We can-- I'm like, well, what's the good news?
She said, well, now you can rule him out. And you can go on and pursue other leads.
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: What most people don't understand about solving crimes and detective work is that, you
know, most of it is a dead end. But every time you get to a dead end, you're closer to catching your person.
And the reason for that is you're eliminating each possibility, each person, each scenario every time you get to a dead end.
And it's a process of exclusion. You're trying to exclude people. You're not trying to include them.
You're trying to exclude them. That gets you closer to your guy. NANCY GRACE: The "Bloodline Detectives" frustrated again.
They now must eliminate Darrell. But he's the last of their leads. We had the DNA.
And that was it. NANCY GRACE: So many times, a tip in one murder can help investigators in another murder.
And that's what happens here. The forensic science of genetic genealogy helps crack the case of the Golden State Killer.
And now, Sacramento detectives look into the idea of using genetic genealogy to crack the case
of Mary London's murder. 1981, Sacramento, what you have going on at the time is the original Night Stalker, later to become known
as the Golden State Killer. PAT HIGGINS: Ann Marie, and her team, and other people that worked the Golden State Killer
had talked over the years. We had talked over and over. Like, there's a whole basis of DNA out there--
Ancestry, 23andMe, all these different things. And there's this wealth of information.
And it was so frustrating that we couldn't solve cases from that information. So when they came up with this way-- this way of doing it,
I was, like, so excited. Because there's so many cases that people get answers for just based on this.
JOSEPH DIZINNO: Forensic genetic genealogy is taking, let's say, DNA from a crime scene,
using a little bit different method to take a look at the DNA, gathering much, much more data.
And the forensic scientists then work with law enforcement who also work with a genealogist to try to identify who
that unknown DNA from the crime scene could possibly have originated from. The DNA profiles used in genetic genealogy
are called single nucleotide polymorphisms-- SNPs. It's much, much more data that is useful to tracing,
let's say, a family tree. The ideal sample is the mother and father. You generally need three-- the unknown,
the mother, and the father. However, many times that is not possible. So you start looking at other relatives
whose DNA may be available. But the farther away you get, the more difficult it becomes to build that family tree.
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: So you need a DNA sample from a crime scene. And you need it put into a database
like GEDmatch, 23andMe, something like that, Ancestry.com. And you put it in. And you see if there's a match anywhere to anyone.
And sometimes, a match will pop up. And it might be eight degrees separation from your person.
And you have to get a team together now, and build a family tree, and start going backwards.
So it's a lot of man hours, a lot of work, and a lot of money. We realized that this actually might work--
at least in my mind. I'm going through all the cases that I knew about that we could potentially do this with.
So I always had hope on Mary's case. I always had hope. NANCY GRACE: For a second time, Mary London's case goes cold.
The team now focusing all their efforts on using a new crime-fighting tool. We sent the sample with the remaining--
extracting the extract to a private laboratory to develop the SNP profile that you can then upload
into a genealogy site to help you potentially relate it to relatives of the suspect.
Genealogy is complex. It is not simple. Every case is different. You may go down a different road.
You might have affairs. You might have adoptions. You might have an aunt adopting somebody
you think is their child. So you have a lot of complexities. This is very, very meticulous work.
Obviously, it's very valuable work. But every one of those cases deserves the dedication
you need to find the answer. PAT HIGGINS: Ann Marie's office did a ton of work with it.
And so the initial time they investigated genealogy, the people in the system were too far removed.
It was, you know, third, fourth cousins. And they're like, Pat, sorry. We can't do anything.
But maybe we'll get lucky. NANCY GRACE: Once again, what seems like good leads become dead ends.
Now police go old school. They appeal to the public. I was a big proponent in to put that out to the public eye.
I said, the case is 35 years old. We have DNA, and it's not in the system. We just need the public's help to try and get
a name to match the DNA up to. So we did a big press release and news releases. And some stations ran footage on it.
NANCY GRACE: After police begged for help on the news, investigators are in for a surprise.
WENDY OLIVOS: I was watching the news. I was at home. And my aunt Mary's face appeared on TV.
And I called my mom and my dad. And I was like, oh my gosh. Mary-- they're talking about Mary's case.
I was watching the news. And they were talking about Mary again, my sister Mary.
WENDY OLIVOS: When that appeared on the news, we were never notified. So I guess they didn't know that she had any living relatives.
So we contacted the police department. When I told-- I talked to one of the detectives--
and I told them my mom is her sister. And then they set up for us to come meet them.
My mom and I actually went down. And we were interviewed. We were on the news. We talked about the case and everything.
The police department seemed very surprised that my mom-- that she had a living sister.
PAT HIGGINS: We knew her mom had died. We knew her dad had died. Her stepmom had died.
And there was not-- the case file didn't list any other relatives. We didn't have anywhere to follow up.
So it was assumed all Mary's relatives were dead. So I just felt awful when she called,
and she said, I'm Mary's half sister. And I was like, oh my god. I'm so sorry. So she came down.
And I just-- I talked to her and said I would do everything I could to try and solve her sister's murder.
NANCY GRACE: In 2020, Kurt Campbell, one of District Attorney Schubert's investigators,
calls Detective Pat Higgins with a potential breakthrough. PAT HIGGINS: Right around April, I
get a call from Kurt Campbell. And he says, hey, Pat, can you do a Zoom meet? And COVID has just hit.
I'm working at home. And I'm like-- I knew my kids did Zoom on stuff. I'm like, yeah.
He said, well, what about in an hour? I'm like, well, I'll figure it out. Because I'm figuring when somebody calls you and says out
of the blue they want to do a Zoom meeting about Mary London, I'm like, god, it's got to be good news this time.
And so, you know, I'm like, OK. I asked my kids. They said, dad, it's simple. They'll send you a link. You hit the button.
You start talking. So I did it. And they said they'd got a name on investigative genealogy.
I was just shocked. And this case has had a lot of ups and downs. And last-- you know, the last I'd heard
was it was not a viable lead. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: Well, ultimately, after probably hundreds of hours by investigators that are
pretty highly sophisticated-- the same types of investigators that worked on the Golden State Killer--
they ultimately came up with a potential suspect of a man named Vernon Parker. NANCY GRACE: "Bloodline Detectives" now have a name.
But they still must find out more about Vernon Parker and establish once and for all if he's the man who
murdered teen girl Mary London. That's next. [MUSIC PLAYING] NANCY GRACE: Sacramento-- investigators
in the 1981 murder of Mary London now using genetic genealogy to help her case. And one suspect begins to stand out.
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: When they put their sample into the genealogy databases, finally
they come up with a name-- Vernon Parker. And is it a celebration? Well, not yet.
It's definitely a good sign. What they find out about Vernon Parker is that he was involved at the time in a sex
trafficking ring, prostitution. So it's looking more and more like this is a very, very bad guy.
But it takes so long to do this. And, you know, you're still not really 100% sure is it really
Mary's killer. So let's go talk to him. NANCY GRACE: But finding Vernon Parker is no easy task.
Detectives hit a major roadblock in their investigation. As detectives begin to look into Vernon Parker,
they find out a year after Mary was murdered, Vernon Parker was murdered himself in the same manner.
He was stabbed to death. PAT HIGGINS: We found out that Vernon Parker had died downtown.
It's about a block away from where she went missing. I wanted to make sure that it was the right guy.
So I did all the research, every case we had. I found multiple files talking about Vernon Parker.
He had been arrested multiple times, so-- under various birthdays. So there was different records for him.
So I had to match up the different records to make sure we're talking about the same person,
because they had fingerprints from arrests. And I found, I think it was, at least eight reports that--
in the year around Mary went missing that Vernon was contacted by the police right in the area
that she was missing. NANCY GRACE: The suspect Vernon Parker is dead. There is no way to swab him now for DNA.
But detective Higgins won't give up. PAT HIGGINS: The first thing we did is we had to figure out if we had any DNA from Vernon Parker.
We found out that the coroner's office still had tissue blocks from his autopsy.
So we got those sent to the lab. The lab confirmed that the DNA belonged to Vernon Parker
with some astronomical number. I was just shocked. I mean, it went from-- you know, because the case
had had so many ups and downs. I was just, wow. NANCY GRACE: Pat Higgins calls Mary's
sister Esther with the news. He called me up and he asked me-- he said-- he said, Esther?
Is this Esther? I said, yeah. He said, do you remember what we was talking about?
I said, are you talking about my sister Mary? He said, yes. He said, we found the one who-- who killed her.
And all I said, now she can rest in peace. NANCY GRACE: Vernon Parker is dead. And now detectives can only speculate
about what happened to Mary the day she was murdered. I think in my my heart and my gut feels like she
went with someone she knew. Her foster mom was saying that Mary had a lot of friends.
She was very sweet. You know, I guess, pretty open, you know, and trusting. So I think that this person that did this to her, she knew.
PAT HIGGINS: I don't know what his motive was. But I think she got off the-- she--
I think she was coming down to meet Vernon. And it just seems too coincidental that she's last seen in the area where he is known to hang out.
He's involved in criminal activity. And they came down here. And they met up. And something went bad.
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: What I think happened that day is Vernon Parker, who is a known sex trafficker,
abducted Mary London. Lured her somehow into his vehicle. Brought her out to that rural road and said, you're mine now.
I own you. And she probably fought back at him. From what I was told, there was a struggle,
that she did fight. And she just didn't let that happen to her. I've just got this feeling, you know, anybody that
would take your life, you know, they would fight for their life. And I think that's what she did.
She'd fight for her life. I just know. NANCY GRACE: 36 years after Mary London's murder,
police may never know exactly why she was murdered. But they know this. They know who the killer is.
And finally, hope and pray that peace can finally come to this family. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: There's no such thing as closure.
It's just loss. And it's just an endless feeling that that person left one day and never came back.
And that somebody did that. Somebody took that life. PAT HIGGINS: The person who did it escaped punishment.
I've worked homicide for a long time. I don't know that they ever get closure. I think all we can do is give them answers.
M. WILLIAM PHELPS: I think in this case, there's a sense of closure for the crime being solved,
because we have that DNA hit. And it looks like we got our guy. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: This is something that they
have lived with for decades. And they don't forget it. Their lives are never the same, ever.
They don't look at the sunlight the same, because their child or their sister or their mother or their wife has been
taken in a very violent way. I was hoping they'd solved the case, you know, and hoping that they'd found the one who did it.
But it took so long, so many years, so many years, you know, of waiting. It's just the idea of waiting to find out who did that.
ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: For me, I just-- I hope it brings some solace. I don't know if I can say it brings justice.
I just hope it brings some solace and some knowledge that we never forgot about that person.
WENDY OLIVOS: I'm so happy that they were able to do this after all so many years, you know,
because we needed closure. You know, he's not alive to face us, but that doesn't matter.
I'm just glad he's-- karma got him. We met the detective that was on the case back then.
He was the one that actually went to the crime scene. It was an honor to meet him, you know, because it was--
I felt like a connection there. They worked hard on this case throughout the years.
But it was always dead end, dead end, dead end. But then they went back to it. They kept going back to it.
I just want to thank him and everybody who worked on it. You know, they put all their energy into the case.
I'm always telling my family, and my friends, and my coworkers, and like-- you know, how-- you know, how they just kept going.
You know, they never stopped. And that means a lot to my family. NANCY GRACE: For Sacramento Police,
this case proves how effective and powerful genetic genealogy really is. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: This has been
a 40-year pursuit of justice. And the Sacramento Police Department deserves tremendous credit, because they
never forgot about Mary. Even-- even in the time frame before genealogy, so much work
was being done to try to find people who were responsible, persons of interest. So it's-- to me, it's this perfect culmination
of persistent pursuit of justice by law enforcement that ultimately brings together the science of genealogy
that led to the answer. M. WILLIAM PHELPS: It's not a be-all end-all crime solving method.
It's only as good as the DNA that's put into it. And right now, there's not a lot of DNA
being put into those databases. Because people are scared that they're giving up who they are.
And they're not. You're just a number in there. You're not a known person in the database.
So the more people that put their DNA into these databases, the more crimes we're going to solve.
But right now, there's not a lot of people in those databases. So it's tough. WENDY OLIVOS: I look at her picture.
And I just, like, wonder, like, how it would have been to, you know, get to know her, you know,
grow up with her. You know, I feel that-- that was stolen from me. I just wish I was able to know her, you know.
But I definitely feel connected to her. I do feel a connection. I just feel her spirit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

In 1981 a young woman is found murdered on the side of the road. Who killed her remains a mystery for decades until law enforcement can utilize genetic genealogy to crack the case.

A compelling new True Crime series, hosted by preeminent legal analyst and renowned former prosecutor Nancy Grace, that explores the advanced form of familial DNA testing.

Brief Summary

The episode details the 1981 murder of Mary London and the decades-long investigation leading to the identification of her killer, Vernon Parker.

Key points

The Murder of Mary London. In 1981, the brutal murder of 17-year-old Mary London shocked Sacramento, leaving a community in fear.
A Community in Panic. The discovery of Mary London's body sends shockwaves through her small community, raising fears of a serial killer.
The Emotional Funeral. Mary London's funeral is a heart-wrenching event, attended by many who loved her.
Cold Case Reopened. After 35 years, Sacramento police reopen the case of Mary London, seeking new leads.
Genetic Genealogy Breakthrough. Investigators explore genetic genealogy to crack the cold case of Mary London's murder.
Breakthrough in Cold Case. Investigators finally identify a suspect in the 1981 murder of Mary London.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She never got the opportunity to become a mom, get married, live her life.

Nancy Grace on the tragic loss of Mary London.

7:59WatchJun 1, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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